


entr'actes

by Lilith



Series: Yuletide [12]
Category: Wayward Children Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Canonical Character Death, During Canon, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Graphic Description of Corpses, Mad Science, Marriage Proposal, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Thematically Appropriate Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith/pseuds/Lilith
Summary: When home is a horror movie world, happily ever after isn’t really part of the package; happily in-between, within the pauses in the tale, are where life is lived and where peace can be found.
Relationships: Alexis Chopper/Jack Wolcott
Series: Yuletide [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1236365
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	entr'actes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cakemage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cakemage/gifts).



**Interval: An exquisite (former) corpse**

The second time Alexis Chopper took her first breath, her eyes fluttered open to a storm-roiled sky, clouds lit from within by receding flashes of lightning as the tempest calmed, its work done. Her skin and shift were damp with rainwater, which she blinked out of her eyes as she tried to understand where, and how, she was.

There was a sharp tingle in her fingertips, her toes, the remnant of a current she could _almost_ remember running through her body. When, bemused, she took the gloved hand that offered to help her rise, she felt it jump across the thin barrier of suede. She stepped down, bare feet to smooth, age-polished boards, while machinery whirred and the ceiling closed over them, blotting out the last, distant bursts of light. The broad room was dim, but for a few protected oil lamps set against the curved walls; light which reflected off the thick lenses in wire frames that sat over the apprentice’s shining eyes.

The Doctor’s apprentice; yes, that was right. She had seen her from a distance before, stepping smartly beside her master through the cobbled streets of the village, headed for the market square. She dressed much the same way he did, masculine and practical, if rather sharper than most any of the village lads - though that couldn’t entirely hide her resemblance to. Well. The other one.

Up close, however, the differences were more stark; the severely braided hair, tight shirt cuffs, and sharp, deliberate movements. This girl was neat, spare, and full of an alert energy that seemed ready to fuel her in any endeavor--at the moment, she was endeavoring to offer Alexis a simple, clean robe of woven cotton, to cover the wet shift that clung to every surface and ample curve of her body.

And--was she blushing? The apprentice’s gaze didn’t waver, meeting Alexis’s with polite interest while she helped her pull the robe over her shoulders, but even in the low light, there was a slight flush creeping over her pale, freckle-dusted cheeks. Alexis hadn’t begun to process what was happening to her; the storm, the stone slab, the imposing figure of Dr. Bleak as he gestured her down the spiral stairs to the laboratory where her anxious parents were waiting … but that electric tingle was still humming in her bones, and she thought perhaps she wasn’t the only one who felt it.

* * *

“Alexis?” Inches from the inn door, she paused, caught by her mother’s inquiring voice. The older woman was leaning in the kitchen doorway, generous hips cocked to rest against the frame while she absently wiped out the inside of a glass with a dishrag and regarded her daughter with poorly-concealed anxiety.

“Yes, Mother?” Alexis gave her a guileless, dutiful sort of smile, clutching the basket she held a little tighter but doing her best to let her shoulders relax, keeping her posture open.

“Where are you off to so early? Heading to the dairy maid’s stall? Are we out of butter _again_ , I asked your father to go a bit easier with his fritters …”

“I thought,” Alexis interrupted before her mother could wander off into a long-winded discussion of her culinary economies and how they were always being foiled by the appetite her husband had retained from his woodcutting days, “that I might gather nettles and dandelion greens for tea. We can always use more, and I’ve not left the house in two days.”

Visibly restraining herself, her mother said “well, as long as you’re back well before dark, and you don’t stray too far from the gate, I suppose there’s no harm. It does look like a fine day.”

Encouraged, Alexis nodded. “It does, and a walk in the fresh air will do me so much good,” she enthused. “And Dr. Bleak said I could harvest some of his raspberry leaves, you know those make an _especially_ fine tea--”

“Dr. Bleak?” Clouds crept back into Ms. Chopper’s expression. “It’s been less than a fortnight since you went back for your check-up; couldn’t you stay closer to home today?” Her eyes narrowed a little. “Are you sure you’re just fetching ingredients for tea?”

Alexis scuffed her foot a little. She knew further dissembling wouldn’t do any good. “Well, I did bake some honey cakes for Jack; she really seemed to like them before …” A gusty sigh cut her off.

“The Moon herself knows that we’re properly grateful to the good Doctor and his apprentice for what they did for you, but dearest, you know where she’s … from.” A delicate pause filled in for the implied “and who she came here with.” “Your father and I are just aren’t sure that she’s appropriate company for … that is to say, she’s not one of us. Living out there in the wilds, never mixing with regular folk …”

“ _I’m_ regular folk, Mother; won’t it do her some good, mixing with me?” Alexis knew a sly twinkle had crept into her eyes, but she couldn’t help it. “I think she’s lonely. And Papa really loves his raspberry leaf tea.”

Her mother wasn’t entirely mollified by this reasoning, but at least she stopped beating around the proverbial thornbush. “You know I don’t like you wandering too far out on the heath, Alexis, after … what happened … if your Papa hadn’t found you so quickly when we discovered you missing, if the Doctor hadn’t been able to treat you that very night, I don’t know what we would have done.”

“But Papa did, and the Doctor did. And Jack _helped_. I’ll be safe as houses with them, and it’s morning yet. I promise to come home before suppertime.” She patted her skirt pocket confidently. “And I have plenty of aconite with me.”

“Take some garlic, too,” her mother sighed, fishing a few cloves out of her apron and, coming forward, pressing them into her daughter’s hand. “And please, be careful.”

“Yes, Mother.” Alexis leaned over to kiss her cheek, and was the rest of the way out the door before her well-meaning parent could come up with another argument to keep her homebound.

She waved gaily to Geoff at the gatehouse as she strode past, taking a deep breath of wild, heather-laden air as she crossed the little strip of well-trodden grass and sod that encircled the village wall, stained here and there with the last remnants of no-longer-boiling oil from some recent attempted incursion or unfortunate misunderstanding.

Another girl might have been inclined to avoid the moorland after what she’d been through; to sit ensconced at the hearthside, darning socks or embroidering handkerchiefs, safely tucked away from the wilds and their dangers. Even a girl from a village in the Moors, raised in the knowledge that her safety was conditional to the whims of the Master, could certainly have been forgiven for choosing to stick close to home and the mundanity of that single, comfortingly constant source of peril. Peril, even, that was significantly reduced by her resurrected status.

Perhaps her mother wasn’t entirely wrong to be so protective; after all, her attraction to the moors and the reclusive pair who lived out on them could stem from whatever incautious corner of her heart had made her susceptible to the lure of a phantasm, that fateful night not long ago. But Alexis wasn’t so sure. The buzzing under her skin didn’t feel anything like the cold, irresistible pull she could only just remember from her somnambulist’s reverie. It felt like life-giving lightning.

The windmill loomed large enough to all but fill her line of sight as she crested the hill and headed for the garden gate. The bees were buzzing among the raspberry bushes that lined the low wall to one side, a strangely cheery note in the sweeping solemnity of a morning on the moors. She straightened her hat and knocked gently at the door. After a pause, it swung open on the intimidating bulk of Dr. Bleak, who looked only mildly surprised to see her there.

“What can I do for you, Miss Chopper?” He rasped, gruff as ever, with the distracted look of a man who had been interrupted in the middle of a complicated train of thought. She smiled politely. “I’m here to see Jack, sir,” she said, holding up her basket in lieu of explanation.

His gaze sharpened on her, a little stern. “Jack has a great deal of work to do today,” he informed her.

She nodded understanding. “I won’t keep her from it,” she promised, “only I had hoped to ask her for her opinion on these new cakes I made with the aniseed she gave me. Oh! And I saved this for you, as well,” and she proffered the cake she’d specially baked with a little precious chocolate traded from the acolyte-merchant at the market last week.

Dr. Bleak lifted an eyebrow. “I know when I’m being bribed, Miss Chopper,” he commented impassively, even as he took the cake from her.

“I would never assume otherwise, sir,” she said earnestly, only the tiniest bit embarrassed. It was all worth it when he gave her a slight nod and said, already turning back to the shadowy interior of his laboratory, “she’s out back replanting the witch-hazel. I’ll be expecting her to be finished in half an hour.” The door closed before she could voice her assent.

* * *

Jack’s head came up as Alexis rounded the windmill; like any good denizen of the Moors, born or adopted, she had excellent peripheral vision and was sensitive to changes in her immediate environment. Alexis paused to take her in; on her knees upon a folded piece of oilcloth, one heavily-gloved hand steadying the center stalk of the last in a line of rather unruly witch-hazel bushes--this one really more of a small tree--while the other was arrested in the midst of filling the hole around it with moist, dark earth. As ever, in spite of the labor she’d been performing, she was neatly done-up in sturdy brown trousers, a matching vest, and a spotless white shirt buttoned to the throat and topped with a jaunty bow tie. Her usual leather apron had been swapped out for one made of sturdy canvas, more practical in the open air, but her gloves were a thick hide and reached nearly to her elbows. Alexis spotted her regular gloves neatly folded and waiting on a clean handkerchief, spread out on the turf nearby.

“Miss Chopper,” Jack greeted her with customary politeness, though she didn’t stand up, “I hope you’ll excuse my poor manners in not rising to greet you, but as you may notice, this plant would tip over if I let it go just now.”

Alexis chuckled, “I can see that. Would you like a hand? I could steady it for you.”

Jack looked about to decline, but paused and gave a small smile. “If you’d be so kind.” Alexis set her basket down near, but not too near, the suede gloves and stepped forward to gently grasp the top part of the sapling’s trunk, bracing its branches with her free hand. Jack released the witch-hazel, and Alexis felt it settle slightly under her touch as Jack set to filling in the hole and smoothing the dirt neatly around the base. She sat back on her haunches and nodded, and Alexis gently stepped back, releasing the tree, which didn’t move. Jack made a small satisfied sound and wiped her gloved hands on the grass.

“My thanks.” Jack stood smoothly and began rolling one long glove down her arm, careful not to brush any remaining dirt onto her pristine sleeve. “I presume you’re here for the raspberry leaves I promised you?”

“Well, yes,” Alexis smiled, feeling a little reckless, “among other things.” Jack paused, glancing up at her curiously, something in her expression wary. Or was that shyness?

“Other things?”

Feeling a little flustered at her own boldness, Alexis covered this by stooping to retrieve her basket, ducking her head so that the brim of her hat briefly shielded her face. Then, straightening: “I brought you these.” She pulled back the cheery checked cloth that covered the basket’s contents, and the smell of fresh baked goods and honey wafted out, still a little warm.

Jack dropped her glove to the side and began unpeeling the other while peering down at the small pile of cakes, and the little pot of fresh butter nestled in beside them. “Are those - the mislabeled seeds I found in the supply room last week?” They had been mistakenly shelved with a number of powders that were anything but suitable for cooking, but safely sealed in their own little jar. Jack had been somewhat displeased to come across them while searching for the disinfecting powder she’d suggested Ms. Chopper try on the inn’s glassware, but Alexis had been so delighted with the discovery that she’d gallantly offered them to her. Alexis had never smelled anything quite like it - neither quite sweet nor savory, but sharp.

Truth to tell, it reminded her a little of Jack.

“They are! I thought they’d offset the sweetness of the honey, but you’ll have to give me your scientific opinion.”

Jack gave a quick laugh. “I suppose the precise blending of flavors could be a scientific endeavor,” she allowed. “Give me a moment to replace my gloves, and--”

But Alexis had an idea. She reached down and took hold of the little checkered cloth, closing it and her hand around a cake at the top of the pile. She lifted it.

“This was laundered fresh this morning,” she informed Jack, who had paused with her second glove pulled half off and was looking at her as though she were a strange new species of mountain butterfly that had been blown far off course and could be venomous. “And placed directly in this basket with just-washed hands.” She was careful to clean her hands before touching anything she hoped to share with Jack, unwilling to risk the rigidity and discomfort that had accompanied early conversations about gloves and skin and the thousands of tiny creatures that inhabited every surface and crevice of the human form.

Jack nodded, still appearing at a loss. “What do you--”

Breathless with her own daring. “Open your mouth.”

Hesitation, and she was afraid that she’d made a critical error, had presumed too much. But then Jack swallowed, once, and obeyed.

Stepping forward, closer into Jack’s periphery than she’d ever ventured before, she brought the cake to Jack’s lips. Jack bit down, a few crumbs escaping to fall harmlessly back into the cupped cloth, and Alexis withdrew her hand a little as the apprentice chewed. She did not step back. There was the soft thud of a heavy leather gardening glove falling to the ground.

“It’s … excellent,” Jack managed after a moment, having swallowed her bite of cake. “A beautifully concordant combination, the cake enhanced but not overwhelmed by the flavor of the anise.” Her eyes half-lidded, she glanced up at Alexis. There was definitely shyness there, but she wasn’t moving away.

“I’m so pleased you approve,” Alexis managed, feeling a little breathless herself as she watched Jack’s tongue daintily swipe a crumb from the corner of her mouth. Jack clearly noticed, and gave a small huff of laughter, which Alexis could feel on her cheek.

“Miss Chopper …”

“Alexis. Jack.”

“Alexis,” and her voice was pitched lower, a hint of gravel making its way into her tone, “if I had my gloves on right now, I would … attempt to express my gratitude. In a manner that I sense you would not object to. But it’s rather difficult to find the correct angle from below, you see, without using my hands.”

“Oh,” Alexis breathed, and then threw caution to the winds on the heath. “That’s all right; I think it’s easier from above.”

And, with the slightest dip of her head, she pressed her lips gently to Jack’s. Barely more than a brush, at first, and then more firmly, when the apprentice didn’t move away, and indeed, answered the pressure. They stood for a moment, leaning into each other, only touching at that one point.

Sweet sparks flooded through her, and though they kept their mouths closed, she could have sworn she caught a hint of anise on her tongue.

* * *

Jack leaned in for a careful examination as Alexis bared her teeth, newly-brushed and shining, for inspection. The clean, spearmint smell of her breath was headier than the sweetest and subtlest perfume ever washed up in a shipwreck from the Drowned Gods’ sea.

“And you flossed between each tooth?” she prompted, straining to make out the lovely, squat shapes of Alexis’s molars in the shadowy depths of her mouth. She was tempted to bring out the tiny, long-handled mirror she used to check her own teeth at regular intervals, and really indulge herself on learning each minute difference of formation in that interior landscape, but she didn’t think her companion would find it as romantic as she would. Perhaps in time.

Alexis’s expression was mildly exasperated, but also fond. “ _Twice_.”

Jack nodded approval, stepping back to appreciate the full context; the full-figured girl standing before her, flushed from the hot bath she'd recently stepped out of, and wrapped in a roughly-made robe that barely met around her middle, soft, inviting flesh peeking appealingly out above the belt. Her damp, straw-colored hair was draped over her shoulders to frame her ample cleavage, and her indulgent expression did not conceal the expectant eagerness she was patiently holding in check. Contemplating that expectation made unaccustomed excitement and terror begin to rise in Jack’s chest, but she wasn’t ready to let it carry her away just yet.

She wasn’t sure she ever would be, but it was nearly time to find out.

“And you scrubbed under your fingernails and behind your ears?”

This made Alexis laugh, “Yes, Jack! Maybe next time you should bathe _with_ me, instead of before I arrive. That way you could make sure for yourself.”

The notion brought a rush of heat to Jack’s face, but she managed a composed “perhaps. It would certainly be more efficient.” Alexis looked as though she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with that assessment, but was more than willing to put it to the test.

“Will I do?” A coy look.

In answer, Jack leaned up and pressed a lingering kiss to her plush lips, and finally, finally gave in to the temptation to slide her tongue between them, ever so gently, into the warm, wet territory she’d previously been inspecting. With a soft, appreciative sigh breathed directly into her, the velvety surface of Alexis’s tongue came alive against hers, rippling and curling in enthusiastic response.

For long moments, Jack lost herself in pioneering this exploration, running her tongue along the hard, curved surfaces of teeth and groaning unexpectedly when her own mouth was invaded. Some of Alexis’s patience broke, leading her to push forward with passionate force that made a warm well of impossible heat open at Jack’s core. Finally she pulled back with a gasp, a little dizzy and discomposed.

Alexis gave a warm chuckle, and for a moment Jack’s eyes stayed closed, breathing in the contrasting, and equally pleasing, scents of warm skin and harsh soap. Then, gathering herself, she opened them and took a small step back.

“Are you ready for the exam?”

In answer, Alexis untied the robe and slid it from her body, holding it out. Jack took it, trying not to stare--not yet--folded it carefully, and placed it on a chair. The little dressing table in her room held a few simple instruments for measuring pulse, heart rate, reflexes, and the like. She lifted the stethoscope and turned back to her subject.

Staring was no longer optional, and she took in the abundance of impossibly soft, unblemished pink flesh that was now laid bare for her inspection. Lush, plump breasts, broad, strong shoulders, and the sweet, generous curve of Alexis’s stomach dimpled with the hollow of her navel. Set between there and the expanse of her thighs, a damp patch of curling hair, brown as moor-grass.

Clearing her throat, Jack stepped in and pressed her instrument to the warm skin of Alexis’s chest, knuckles pushing into the heavy softness of one breast as she found the correct positioning. Alexis gave a little hiss at the contact, and Jack paused to check in.

“The metal’s cold,” Alexis murmured in explanation. Jack nodded. “I don’t think this will take long,” she reassured her, keeping her voice steady, “and then we can warm up.”

Flushing at the look she got in response, she refocused on the soft thudding of the heartbeat in her ears, a little elevated - but that was only to be expected, in the circumstances.

From the responses Alexis’s body made to Jack’s tests, you certainly could never have guessed that it had, at least briefly, been quite dead. She was healthy and strong, with the fast reflexes that came naturally to one born in a world where being slow on the uptake could so easily put her in harm’s way, or worse. Her breathing was even, except where it hitched when Jack’s fingers stroked gently across her bare skin. Her hearing was excellent, and her eyes sharp. There was no sign of disease or malnutrition, no irregular lumps in the yielding flesh of her breast tissue, no sign of irritation or imbalance in her softer places.

Finally, Jack laid aside the tongue depressor and pronounced Alexis fit and clean as a ripe young woman could be. Alexis gave her a wicked grin in response, and reached out to unknot Jack’s cravat, fingers tickling the hollow of her throat in a thoroughly distracting fashion.

“In that case, it’s my turn,” she declared, ducking her head to capture Jack’s mouth once more while her fingers set to work on the buttons of her vest and shirt.

* * *

Some time later, pressed close and warm beneath the clean, rough linen of Jack’s sheets, Alexis allowed her hand to trail downward. She whispered a question into her ear.

And Jack, as ever in the spirit of scientific inquiry, gave the only answer she could.

**Interlude: Lighting Strikes Twice**

“It certainly is an ingenious design.”

Jack was examining the schematics Dr. Bleak had handed her, while he wheeled the generator over to one of the surgical tables at the center of the great central laboratory space in the windmill. Alexis lay back on its cold surface, gazing up into the eyes of the enormous taxidermied reptile that hung high above her from one of the catwalks. There was something sympathetic about its expression, she thought. There was some shared experience in being laid out and stitched back together, preserved from the grave in one fashion or another.

She closed her eyes briefly, banishing the touch of bitterness that wanted to creep in and saturate her thoughts. How could she waste her energy being bitter now?

As if to underscore the question, there was the soft touch of suede on the back of her hand. Opening her eyes, she turned it palm-up, for Jack to hold.

“How are you feeling, love?” Jack laid the drawings down on her stomach, absent-mindedly, looking at her with tenderness and concern. Jack’s face, her presence, was such a miracle still; two days returned, after more than a year missing. Jack should have been there for her (third) first breath, for her agonizing, uncertain return to the land of the living a second time. But that pain was fading to a dull ache, now, like the rest; no match for the joy of their reunion.

In answer to the question, she smiled ruefully, unable to respond in words, and moved her free hand in a see-saw motion to convey ambivalence. She hated being unable to communicate more precisely, especially with someone who valued precision as much as her lover … but she would have her voice back soon. She could hear Dr. Bleak shifting equipment around, plugging things in.

Jack smoothed the hair back from her face, exposing more of her scar in the process, but not seeming to care. The concern in her eyes, the depth of emotion, was breathtaking. She was so real.

“Hands, please, Alexis,” rasped Dr. Bleak quietly, and Jack released her so that she could reach back to grasp the familiar metal contacts he handed her, slick with gel. He directed Jack in applying the electrodes to her temples and throat, while he moved to her ankles.

Jack’s hand brushed over her front, familiar and startling, and lingered. “She doesn’t need any here?”

“These will suffice,” Dr. Bleak came to stand next to his apprentice, and began explaining, pointing at the papers that sat on Alexis’s lap, showing the features of the device that kept her alive. The chambers and ventricles of her artificial, lightning-powered heart.

The original organ that had beat faithfully within her chest for almost eighteen years, bar a few hours after her first death, had been lost in the blood and fire and fear that followed her second. Whether the vampire’s daughter had disposed of it herself, or some other beast had gotten ahold of it, they would never know. When she’d first revived, the symbolic significance of losing her love and her literal heart all at once had not been lost on the innkeeper’s daughter.

She had the most important piece back, now. And Jack, appropriately, had the power to restore what stood in for the rest.

Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead, between the electrodes, and stepped back to assist Dr. Bleak. Alexis closed her eyes, knowing Jack’s hands were on the crank; imagining them gently cupping her heart, kneading new life into it. She took a breath, and the surge of lightning hit her, lighting her up inside. Distantly, she could hear the beloved, much-missed sound of Jack’s joyous laughter; if she cried, the tears evaporated instantaneously.

* * *

Two weeks to the day after her return from the Moors, Jack woke with pale, sickly early-morning sunlight streaming tentatively through the narrow window in her second-story room. For a disorienting minute, she stared at the bundled herbs and trio of taxidermied bats hanging above her, instead of the criss-cross of metal pipes that ran across the ceiling of Eleanor West’s basement. Then she remembered, and her heart swelled.

Sitting carefully, she looked down at Alexis’s sleeping form in the bed beside her, feeling the wonder of it all over again. Alexis, alive and in her bed, sharing her room and her windmill and her reclaimed life. Her lover’s scarred face was peaceful in hard-won repose; she’d been in a good deal of pain the previous night, curled up with her head in Jack’s lap while Jack spoke softly to her about the beautiful stillness of the Halls of the Dead, of pomegranate juice, living statues, and the kindly Lord and Lady at their feasts and stately dances. How they welcomed living children who were made for the slow and quiet tranquility of those lands, where little could ever trouble them again.

Moving nearly as slowly, so as not to wake her, Jack slipped from the bed and pulled on the fresh clothes she’d laid out the night before. Feeling an unaccustomed sense of carefree looseness, she left her top button open and her cravat on the chair. It was only once she’d gotten halfway down the spiral steps that she realized she’d also left her gloves.

She didn’t go back for them.

The morning dew had already dried in the unaccustomed, if pale, light of an unusually sunny morning on the Moors. Jack hummed to herself as she set to work pulling weeds and trimming back some of the encroaching tendrils from the bean trellises, relishing the smells of earth and greenery. At school, she had been understood purely as a creature of darkened indoor spaces, of dissections and dissolution. Coaxing plants to growth and abundance was just as much her calling, just as important to _science_ ; a piece that she had missed almost as much as the lightning. Perhaps she ought to have asked Miss Eleanor for a patch, but at the time, it had felt easier to stick to her assigned role. And to Jill.

Well, no longer.

The lavender was thriving, though it was too early for it to bloom. She plucked great handfuls of mint and sage for drying, feeling the rough texture of the leaves against her fingertips, and pulled a few beets, thinking of the soup she would make for dinner.

She was plucking early tomatoes when Alexis came out to join her, long skirts rustling as she made her way over with two steaming mugs of tea. She stooped to set one on the turf beside Jack, and then carefully lowered herself down after, clutching her own mug close to her chest.

“Good morning,” her voice was quiet, but strong; Jack was already learning to automatically assess the signs and signals of her love’s health, the energy levels and the time that was afforded before she would require treatment. They had some yet, but she made a note to suggest sign language practice for the afternoon; making halting sentences, books spread out in their laps for reference, and laughing when they made mistakes.

“Morning, love,” Jack reached for her mug of tea, then stopped and contemplated her own fingers. They were wet; shining with the juices of an over-ripe tomato, a seed or two clinging to her skin. She stared in fascination for a moment.

“Are you all right?” Alexis asked hesitantly, with understandable concern.

“I … yes.” Jack laughed a little, shocked and slightly giddy. “I’m fine. In fact, I seem to be in a state of exceptional well-being.” She raised her fingers to Alexis’s lips, wonderingly, and traced them, streaking the juice over her skin as well. Parting them slightly, Alexis took Jack’s fingers into her mouth, carefully, tenderly, and sucked the last of it away. Then her hand came up to hold Jack’s, and she kissed her knuckles.

“You’re a marvel, Jacqueline Wilcox,” she commented. “Now drink your tea.” Jack laughed again, and obeyed.

* * *

Much later that same evening, the pair of them were tucked into blankets out in the grass, borscht warm in their stomachs, enjoying the rare sight of stars on the clearest night Jack had ever spent on the Moors. She knew the names of the constellations already, mostly from books, but she’d never seen most of them complete. Their pale light was wondrous, though it didn’t fill her with the same wild, intense joy as did the lightning, of course. Idly, she wondered what other planets there might be in the world of the Moors; what kind of broader cosmology lurked beyond the Moon's eternal prominence in their sky.

Far off, there was the long, lonely howl of an adolescent werewolf, likely taking part in the ritual solo hunt that was a coming-of-age tradition for the mountain folk. A gentle breeze stirred the bells of the aconite patch flowering all around them, and light spilled from the windmill only a few paces behind. They were almost, relatively, safe, and yet still at home.

Alexis snuggled in a bit closer, and contentment spread, blood-warm, through Jack’s body.

A nudge at her side, and she turned to see Alexis’s hands moving, asking a question.

“I was thinking that I’m happier than I can ever remember being, and wondering if I’ll be allowed to keep it. All this.” She paused.

“You.”

Alexis smiled, a little wry and very fond; then, she held out her hand. On it sat two tiny braided circlets of moor-grass, which she must have been weaving while Jack contemplated the heavens.

Jack found that she couldn't speak, as she carefully slid one of the rings onto her betrothed’s finger, and, sliding off a glove, held her hand out to receive the other. Something was caught in her throat, something that made her breath rasp and her eyes sting.

She replaced the glove over the little grass ring, something to be cherished and protected, private. Then, using the same hand, she made the simple sign for “yes.” 

**Intermission: Love and Monsters**

It was a dark and stormy night.

It had been a dark and stormy week, in fact, with not much more than a glimpse of the Moon’s crimson face peering from behind the clouds. Small pools had formed in the lowlands of the Moors, visited by strange, dark, gangly birds that were something like, but were not, herons. There had been problems with minor flooding in the village; or so the Choppers had reported, when they had come with an enormous pot of rabbit stew and a basket of fresh, hearty bread all wrapped in oilskin, knowing that the denizens of the windmill were too busy to cook proper meals at regular intervals.

Their daughter had thanked them heartily, all the more so because she knew that they risked the Master’s wrath by coming. She kissed them on their cheeks and promised to visit when some time had gone by, and the state of affairs on the Moors felt more stable. Then she’d seen them on their way with pockets full of garlic, made up some plates, and gone to pry Jack away from the surgical tables for at least long enough to take a few bites. It hadn’t been an easy task, by any means.

Even for a denizen of the Moors, Alexis knew, she hadn’t signed up for ease; and if she had the opportunity to go back and do things differently … well, she might have been a little more cautious on her way to the windmill one day years ago, if that would have made any difference. But she wouldn’t have chosen differently, not where it counted.

She stood beneath the open roof of the windmill, rain pelting her face as she stood by the crank, ready to assist in any way Jack might need. She had a fresh charge, and the water sizzled slightly as it made contact with her skin. Below, Dr. Bleak was fiddling with the new portable captive lightning battery he was designing, to provide her with an emergency source of power should she ever stray too far, or need a boost in the midst of essential work. If he was successful, it could be a great help to her someday … for now, it was helpful mostly in the way it kept him seated and relatively still for long stretches, allowing the great wound in his neck to heal. Nothing else would have kept him away from the more strenuous work of re-assembling injured and dead Drowned Gods’ acolytes and villagers, or away from the lightning.

Another great flash, growing closer, lit the planes of Jack’s intent face starkly white against the roiling dark of the storm as she hovered over the body on the slab, eyeing the cables that connected it to the generator. A village woman in her early thirties - one of the Master’s, who had been caught in the battle while trying to reach a brother who had served as a castle guard. She had lived for several days afterward, hidden away at home, until there was nothing left that could be done for her by more ordinary medicine. Her terrified husband had borne her lifeless body to the windmill at last, where she’d been placed in the chill dark of the basement to wait her turn. All the while, Jack had fulfilled her promise to Gideon, trekking ceaselessly between graveyard, laboratory and where necessary, the lightning-struck machinery of resurrection.

The last wagon had departed for the Abbey in the late afternoon, leaving the detritus of almost a fortnight’s surgical triage scattered over the usually impeccable windmill. But Jack wouldn’t rest, and Alexis had little heart to push her - as long as there had been work to do, they had held together, but neither was sure what would come after, or how to begin to rest and repair their shared life in the wake of this terrible chapter.

As if in answer, there had been one last body waiting for revival; this village woman, as innocent a bystander as it was possible to be while in feudal contract with a vampire lord. Alexis had not known her well--too young to be a companion of her mother’s, too old to be a playmate--but knew that her name was Edith, and that she worked at the village bookstore. She had sold them their other-worldly books on sign language.

Something of the jittery, anxious energy had left Jack as she surveyed the damage to Edith’s body, opening the cavity of her midsection to identify the organs that were past repair. And she had turned, scalpel in hand, to the freezing basement’s other occupant, laid broken and silent with arms folded across her pale chest, her buttery, bloodstained locks gathered into a loose knot at her shoulder.

Jill was still dressed in the clothing Jack had worn to storm the vampire’s castle, having been tucked away from eye and mind while urgent matters had occupied her sister, and while their final meeting felt too fresh. Jack’s hands had been steady when Alexis helped her strip away the spoiled cloth and to gently cleanse the broken body beneath, as though preparing it for a family funeral. Then, Jack had taken the scalpel to her twin’s abdomen, to flesh she herself had worn not long ago, cut into it almost tenderly, and removed the intact liver and right kidney. 

There was grief, but also reverence, in her expression as she set to work repairing Edith’s body with pieces of her lost sister, and Alexis had stolen away to begin cleaning the laboratory; leaving Jack to build, stitch by stitch, the beginnings of her own peace.

Now, as the ozone built, in the moment before the lightning shot down to shock the newly-chimerical form of Edith back to life, Jack’s eyes met Alexis’s, tired but lit from within with purpose, with the catharsis of turning her sister's demise to such use, and with the joy of sharing her work with her beloved. It was far too loud for spoken words at the height of the storm, but their hands and eyes did just as well.

“I love you.”

“And I you. With all my monstrous heart.”

Then the dazzling, lifegiving white-blue glare, and for a breathless, joyful moment, everything was possible.


End file.
